City gaining reputation for record-breaking feats

Exactly one year ago, swimmer Lisa Dixon-Wells had just returned home to Calgary as a champion, with nine gold medals from the World Masters Games in Turin, Italy. Thursday morning has her facing a liquid challenge of a whole other sort. “I don’t know where our heads were when we decided to take this on,” she says with a nervous laugh. “For some reason, we just had to pick one of the most labour-intensive records in the world to try and break.”

calgaryherald

Updated: September 19, 2014

Nexen Energy employees in Calgary cheer after setting the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people dressed as batman.Leah Hennel Leah Hennel

Exactly one year ago, swimmer Lisa Dixon-Wells had just returned home to Calgary as a champion, with nine gold medals from the World Masters Games in Turin, Italy.

Thursday morning has her facing a liquid challenge of a whole other sort. “I don’t know where our heads were when we decided to take this on,” she says with a nervous laugh. “For some reason, we just had to pick one of the most labour-intensive records in the world to try and break.”

Together with a team of enthusiastic volunteers and corporate supporters, Dixon-Wells, founder of the Calgary-based, national Dare to Care bullying prevention program, has set up 356 lemonade stands along the Eau Claire promenade. As long as her crew can keep serving lemonade over a two-hour period, they’ll set a new Guinness World Record for world’s longest lemonade stand.

At the same time she’s pouring lemonade, 542 of the good folks at Nexen Energy are suiting up as Batman. As part of the kickoff to the United Way’s annual fundraising campaign — the company’s donated more than $17 million to the United Way in just under two decades — they are creating a new Guinness category, largest gathering of people dressed as Batman. In 2011, 437 of them donned Superman costumes, a record shattered in 2013 when 867 Brits followed suit, pardon the pun.

Achieving Guinness World Record status has become something of a local pastime these days, as Calgarians continue to be among the more than 153 Canadians to succeed in their efforts to be immortalized, Guinness-style — that is, until some upstart somewhere on the planet comes along and breaks their record.

In early 2013, hundreds of hockey players at the annual Kimmett Cup hockey tournament in Chestermere broke the record for the lengthiest marathon playing ice hockey; a group at Silver for Seniors set a record when 262 residents joined in a choreographed “Cane Fu” exercise; and of course, no local story about Guinness World Record holders is complete without mentioning Cochrane’s Martin Parnell, who’s collected three of them for organizing marathon games of netball, soccer and lacrosse, in aid of his favourite charity, Right to Play.

On Monday, Parnell’s latest endeavour involves the University of Calgary’s Right to Play Club, which will host what is hoped to be the largest “Muggles” Quiddich match. “We need 90 to break the record,” says club spokeswoman Nancy Enns, who notes they will be joining 10 other universities in Guinness World Record breaking-attempts on behalf of Right to Play. “We figure getting 100 people out to play is do-able,” she says.

If they succeed, they’ll join a growing number of local Guinness record breakers. Our city boasts the record for fire torch teething duration thanks to Carisa Hendrix (yes, that’s holding a flaming torch between your teeth for more than two minutes), Rob McLeod’s longest flying disc time aloft and longest tail on a dog, courtesy of Finnegan the Irish wolfhound.

As the famed Guinness World Records organization celebrates its 60th anniversary, spokesman Stuart Claxton says its worldwide popularity is bigger than ever. “We’re now getting more than 50,000 inquiries a year from people vying for a spot,” says Claxton from his New York office.

“We have a database of about 40,000 records covering more than 200 categories, with 10 per cent those making it into our annual book each year,” he says, adding one particular area has seen exponential growth. “The social environment we live in today is rife for individual feats.”

It’s also rife for people wanting to do good while at the same time breaking records. “In my 12 years with the organization, I’ve noticed a lot more charities coming on board,” he says. “It is a great way to get your name out there — and the media loves stories about record breakers.”

Claxton says anyone interested in making or breaking a Guinness World Record should visit its website as a first stop. There, they will find out all the hoops to jump through in order to have their feat verified.

Dixon made sure to follow all the rules, which included having a surveyor on hand to verify the lemonade stands were connected and a videographer to tape from start to finish, among many other evidence-gathering tools.

“The whole experience has been a blast, with so many people and companies coming together to help,” says a triumphant Dixon-Wells after she manages to beat the previous record of 426 metres by 34 metres, while raising more than $180,000 for Dare to Care programs.

“Next time, though, we’ll go through the record books and find an easier record to break.”

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